More concerns about street drinking in Boston have been raised despite a senior policeman insisting that the problem had dramatically improved.

A Good Samaritan has got in touch to say that three people had to come to the assistance of an unconscious man in Halfords who said he had been drinking.

In another incident, two drinkers were also spotted staggering around the town before collapsing to the floor.

And another image of a man who appears to have been drinking and is slouched lifelessly on a wall has also been captured by a local.

The police say reports of street drinking have decreased by almost 50 per cent so far this year - and say that when they went out to speak to people in the town, not one person raised the issue of street drinking.

But Jamie Brown, who runs Woad Farm & Surrounding Areas - Community Voice Facebook page, calls that statistic 'laughable' - and says people simply are not bothering to report it to the police because they think they won't turn up.

David Jurevic revealed this week that he was on his way to Halfords when he spotted two other Good Samaritans trying to help the man on the ground.

Mr Jurevic gently shook the man, who told him he had been drinking, and talked to him until he eventually came around.

He told Lincolnshire Live: “I was going to Halfords, and I saw two people trying to help a collapsed person. I immediately jumped in to help, and tried to wake up that collapsed man. I tried to shake him gently to see if he would respond. After couple of minutes of gentle shaking, he was conscious again.

“I asked him: 'what's happened?' He said he was in pain.

“When paramedics arrived they asked the man if he had been drinking and he said he had drunk four pints that day.

"They then took him to hospital.”

The incident happened just days after an eye-witness saw two men sitting on the roadside in the town and repeatedly falling over.

The eye-witness said one man was trying to help the other up but they both kept stumbling over and appeared to ‘give-up’ before sitting on the ground.

Read More

Police say they received 34 reports of street drinking incidents from January 1 to August 30 this year.

This is almost half of the 60 reports received for the same period last year.

Insp Andy Morrice from Boston said: “We were out for more than five hours on August 30, and quite literally hundreds of people came to speak with us, the police and crime commissioner was present, as was the Deputy Chief Constable, and not a single person, not one, complained about street drinking.

"They spoke about plenty of other things, so they weren’t afraid to come and tell us.

Read More

“There is more work to do with street drinking, but I have to re-iterate, there is no street drinking ban.

"The Public Space Protection Order allows us to require people to stop drinking, and hand over their alcohol for disposal. This may seem like splitting hairs, but the bottom line is this - if we don’t ask people to surrender their alcohol, no offences have been committed.

"There is therefore nothing we can do about retrospective pictures of people with cans of beer in their hands. It’s not like shoplifting or any other ‘crime’ where police can act and arrest at any time, after the event.

"With street drinking, if they aren’t challenged at the time, no offences are committed, and we are unable to prosecute after the event.

“If we can identify the ‘drinkers’ the council could in theory still look at the 4 stage anti-social behaviour legislation retrospectively, but we cannot fine, arrest or similar for the drinking.”

Read More

He spotted a man asleep in the street in Boston in another possible street drinking incident.

He said: “I think street drinking is a major issue in Boston. Calling 101 doesn't work as they take ages to answer and even longer to attend anything that's been reported. Hence why people don't bother anymore. The police stats claiming it has halved are laughable to say the least.”